I know the French like to smoke. That's not the point. I don't, and I don't want to be confronted by a picture of someone doing their best Fag-Ash Lil impression.
Secondly, yes I'm aware it's BB, but you know, people under the age of 30 probably won't. And personally, I don't care if it's Queen Boudicca of the Iceni, I still don't want to see a picture of her smoking.
It was a polite request. I know some friends who are trying to give up the habit don't need to be reminded of it by seeing pictures; I'm sure I'm not the only person who doesn't want to see a picture like this.
And lastly I'm not learning French. Greek, Latin, Welsh, Spanish and Italian ... but not French.

I apologize if it seemed I didn't understand in my first post. I understand your concern. This website is run with user generated content. At some point you may come across a picture or image that you may not like, but it also may be perfectly welcome and fine in other cultures. That's not to say that anything goes here, but an image of a women with a cigarette in her mouth is pretty tame.

And like I said, only the curator can change it (unless admins of the site step in). If it were something NSFW I would understand your complaint, but its not...

People who give up smoking understand that they are going to be faced with adverts and reminders of their past but that's a small price to pay for the potential health benefits of quitting.

I quit drinking soda because I find it incredibly unhealthy. That was a personal decision. I don't expect others to share my view, and I certainly don't want to censor images/advertisements that remind me of it. I understand that not everybody is like me. I understand that soda and smoking are both appropriate things for people to engage in. If it weren't the President of the U.S. wouldn't have gotten elected.

If you don't like the picture I'm sure you can find someway to ignore that particular word list/image. I think it's incredibly unfair and a bit selfish to want that picture removed. You said, "I know the French like to smoke. That's not the point. I don't, and I don't want to be confronted by a picture of someone doing their best Fag-Ash Lil impression."

That's a lot of "I"'s there. This is a community and it's not fair to impose your beliefs of censorship on other members here. Technically, you aren't being forced to learn on this website. You can always try other places to learn languages.

FSI
BBC Language
MIT online language courses

There are many other resources online that you could visit, though I must say, if a picture of a woman with a cigarette in her mouth is offensive to you, the internet may not be the best place for you to spend time on.

Sorry man, I didn't know you wanted to have that option for just you, which makes more sense I guess, though logistically it would be harder to do. Currently there is no way to personally change the appearance of an image to a wordlist.

There is a forum here where you can suggest new and interesting ideas. If you're lucky Ben may notice and suggest this idea to the Memrise team for implementation.

Like sfrenchie, I'm a fan of the picture (and a former smoker!). Also, I think having to look at a picture that you don't love is a relatively small price to pay to have use of a pre-assembled list of 1000 words. If one didn't like the picture, it is entirely possible to simply make a different list with any other image.